Dove’s real beauty campaign

Dove is committed to making beauty a source of confidence

With different standards of beauty all across the world which are contributing to
association of anxiety with beauty, Dove wants to remove this element of
anxiousness and replace it with confidence and high self-esteem.
The brand mission was set after the global report presented that only 2% of
women all across the world consider themselves as beautiful. Taking lead from
this report’s conclusions, Dove decided to “democratise” beauty so that more
women across the world would define beauty as they see it differently and thus
expand the notion of beauty.
In order to make it happen, Dove started a range of positive enforcement
marketing and advertising campaigns all across the world, so that the concept of
beauty is changed from comparison to celebration and finally confidence.
The main objectives of these campaigns were to
 Increase positive self-image of women across the world
 Increase the brand awareness of Dove
 Reinforce a positive association with the Dove brand image
Dove: average or beautiful

One of the campaigns started by Dove was the “average or beautiful” campaign,
which asked a sample of women from across the world to rate themselves on their
own perceived self-image as being “average” or “beautiful.”

The campaign aimed to achieve an emotional connect with its target audience and
raise brand awareness, engagement, and positive association with customers and
the brand.

How it was done?

Dove set up two door-way entrances across shopping complexes, malls, and
railway stations labelled: “average” and “beautiful.” These were in various
locations in the cities of Shanghai, New Delhi, San Francisco, Sao Paolo and
London.

Camerapersons recorded the reaction of women as they passed through the door
of their choice and interviewed them for the choice they made. Most of them
walked through the average door and in interviews they pointed out how they
were conscious about what they think of themselves and what others may think,
and how they did not like the decision they made.
Through this social experiment, Dove was able to start a conversation around
positive self-image building among the participants. Positive changes were
observed when the participants were confronted with same choices again. This
time they decided to walk through the “beautiful” door and in later responses
clearly talked about their increased self-esteem and positive image.

The message that Dove wanted to convey was essentially that one must not let
the world decide whether you are beautiful or not, but be more confident and
empowered about creating one’s own best self-image.

The campaign is a unique one of its kind because it focused attention on consumer
of the brand – and not at the brand itself. It also allowed women to explore their
insecurities, talk about them openly, and made them feel comfortable.

The campaign is considered to be one of the most successful experiential

marketing campaigns in recent times. The viral campaign video gained over 5
million views, coverage from hundreds of media outlets, over a million entries on
google for the key word “Dove choose beautiful.”

Most of the Dove advertisement campaign focuses on the following elements

 Creation of memorable experience through emotions
 Consumer participation
 Brand awareness
 Positive brand image

As Schmitt pointed out, in order to create a memorable experience for a rational

and emotional human being, any marketer or the campaign can use five different
types of experiences or sensory experiential modules (SEM): sensory experiences
(SENSE), affective experience (FEEL), creative or cognitive experience
(THINK), physical experience (ACT), and social identity experience (RELATE).

Any marketer can use a combination of above mentioned experiences in order to

create an experience for the consumer that could dazzle the senses of consumer
and make it a memorable experience and brand. Dove ad campaigns are also using
a combination of above mentioned experiential modules such as
 Affective experience (FEEL)
 Physical experience (ACT)
  Social identity experience (RELATE)

With the use of above mentioned experiences Dove is able to construct campaigns
which render the following:
 Creation of memorable experiences through emotions
 Consumer participation
 Brand awareness
 Positive brand image

AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE (FEEL)

Many consumers, especially many women, tend to make decisions based on their
emotional experience of the brand or the product. In fact, it is well known that an
emotionally driven decision has higher chances of resulting into consumer delight
than mere customer satisfaction.

Dove through this campaign is able to capture the emotions of women related to
their body images and their idea of beauty. It provides its consumer a feel of
comfort and confidence through positive image building.

The campaign also helps in understanding the overly self-critical nature of many
women, which is not only a valuable insight for understanding female consumer
behaviour for brands but also an insight into the ambiguous answer to “what is
the ideal image of beauty.”

The campaign was largely successful in crumbling the negative self-image of

consumers and replacing it with a more confident and beautiful one.

Recorded video when played across the media was also able to inspire confidence
and spoke to contextually to a market of various body types, skin colours and
races.

Finally, the campaign was hugely successful in generating positive emotions

towards Dove products.

PHYSICAL EXPERIENCE (ACT)

By the act of having the walk through one of the two entrances, Dove was
encouraging its consumers to participate in the act of making a choice. The
recorded video of their act is successful in capturing and creating an emotional
investment for them. Through active participation, Dove made them feel invested
and gave them an experience to remember. In the reception of these videos by
potential consumers all around the world, the participants were able to feel that
they were contributing to the process of spreading a positive message of self-
confidence.

This incorporation of the consumers into the central role of spreading the
campaign message made the marketing more about the audience than the brand
or product itself. It created a unique and personalised sense of communicating as
the consumers were talking about issues that directly affected them in a real
manner.

SOCIAL IDENTITY (RELATE)

The Dove campaign was powerful, emotional and immersive because it was able
to create a common and shared sense of experience among women all over the
world, including video viewers as well as participants. Most of these women
identified with the unrealistic issue of “ideal beauty” and feeling an average sense
of self.

Most women were able to locate the problem and despite being of different races,
regions, and body types, they identified with the common message. Viewers and
participants were able to relate to each other and could empathize. The message
delivered was also highly uplifting and heart warming

All the above mentioned elements contributed in making a memorable experience

in the minds of the viewers and consumers, and thus the campaign was able to
authentically, emotionally and effectively captivate the consumer and
communicate a positive message.

SUGGESTION

Even though the Dove campaigns where highly effective and innovative, I would
like to recommend Pine and Gillmore’s “4 e’s of retailing,” which can lead to an
experience that is more meaningful, personal, delightful and emotional. The use
of this model will led to increase in brand loyalty and positive image building of
brand.
Entertainment - An entertainment element can be added to Dove: The average
and beautiful campaign can be enhanced by incorporation of technology, where
customers are asked to click a picture of themselves or their friends and post them
with the #Doveisbeautiful. All these pictures will be displayed across different
kiosk and social media pages of Dove.

Special events can also be organised by Dove in the rural market and among self-
help groups such as movie screening and nataks, this will increase the interaction
level of consumer and brand at the rural level.

Educational: Dove campaigns are majorly focused on crumbling the stereotypes

of beauty across the nation and positive reinforcement of beauty. In order to make
the message reach to everyone Dove can do the following
 Reaching out to different educational institutions and organising various
workshops or sessions related to stereotypes of beauty.
 Participating in various literature festivals and contributing to cause by
organising different talks and discussions about how these stereotypes are
harming our societies.
Esthetic:
 Dove can create various captivating set-ups across the city which
communicate the message of beauty.
  They can also develop a set of various fun mirrors in public parks and
public places, to communicate the idea that beauty comes in all shapes and
sizes and “she is beautiful.”

Escapism: As this element is about giving your customer an escape from reality,
Dove can do this by, for example, providing housewives and working women
with celebrity makeovers and also by providing them professional photoshoot for
a magazine cover.